Anti-Intentionalism

Meaning of various sorts is so frequently associated with interpretation that many philosophers identify the excavation of meaning as the sole object of interpretation and, for that reason, propose linguistic meaning as the model for understanding interpretation. Linguistic meaning, of course, is highly structured in terms of conventions of semantics and syntax. So on this view, interpreting a work is a matter of discovering its meaning through the rules of the relevant art form. With respect to a poem, for example, it is said, one need only appeal to the public meanings of the words and the traditional practices of figuration; no recourse, for example, to authorial intention is necessary. Because of its reliance upon the conventional meanings of words to the exclusion of authorial intention, this view, which was ably defended by the late Monroe Beardsley, can be called anti-intentionalism.